A lathe is a machine tool having one or more movable cutting elements which operate on a workpiece rotated by a headstock. Some machine tools have the operating components angularly disposed relative to a horizontal plane in order to allow chips, shavings, cutting fluid and the like to move away from the workpiece by gravity. The movable components are mounted to a base which is typically comprised of a metal, although cementitious bases are known.
Current machine tools can repeatedly reproduce cuts to extremely small tolerances. Naturally, it is desired to lower even these already small tolerances. The extremely small tolerances require that numerous factors affecting the machine tool and the relationship between its component parts be controlled. For example, temperature fluctuations can adversely impact machine operation due to dissimilar thermal expansion coefficients between the components. Likewise, vibrations established in the machine tool can have an impact on performance which is particularly harmful at low tolerances.
The conventional machine tool base is a rather large bulky assembly to which the operating components are attached. The bedways on which the cutting elements move are typically manufactured from metal, such as steel or cast iron, and must be secured to the base. Positive securement of a fabricated metal component to a cementitious base requires that alignment be maintained with extreme accuracy, or else the required tolerances cannot be maintained. Grouting of the metal components to a cementitious base has been used in the past, but such prior techniques did not adequately take into account the shrinkage forces generated by the grout, nor did they permit accurate leveling of the bedways.
From the above, those skilled in the art will understand that there is a need for an improved method of grouting the metallic bedways of a machine tool to the cementitious base. The resulting assembly is one having components of dissimilar thermal expansion and vibration dampening coefficients which are adequately regulated to assure repeated cuts of extremely small tolerances.